Blew a HG already...

Alright guys, before you guys say anything, yes i know, im dumb for beating on the car before i got it tuned! Man do i regret it!

Well i got it running great lastnight, took it for a rip ride.. Had the timing at 8 degrees and btm at 3. Got on it a few times from 2k-4500ish, and all of a sudden the car was smoking BAD. White smoke outa the tail pipe like you wouldnt believe. Didnt get ANY pinging though. Not that i could hear.

So. I pulled the plugs today, some where a little white. One of them, #4 was completely crushed. The tip was crushed into the electrode. My thoughts here is - once it started smoking, i pulled over and shut the car off. IF the coolant leaked into the CYL while the car was off, then i started it again, knowing that water does not compress, could that be what killed the plug? Cause right after i pulled over the car was runiing like it was on 7 cyl's.

After pulling all the plugs, i went ahead and did a compression test. These are the results:

1- 160
2- 175
3- 180
4- 170
5- 150
6- 150
7- 150
8- 150

The 150's seem cool, but isnt 180 way high? Could it be it has coolant in the chamber, giving a high compression??

How am i supposed to determine the side its blown? It would be very time saving to just do one side.. You guys think its the passenger side? Prob is cause that is the PITA side (turbo), thats how it always works.

Am i better off to just change both, or? What would you guys do?

BTW i poped the lower intake off, that gasket looks fine, i was praying it was busted, but nope :(

Thanks guys.
 
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If your going to change the headgaskets, theres some new ones out (dont know who makes them) but they have a steel center and are covered by nylon? and kevlar and heard they are really hard to blow. Might want to check thoes out.
 
holy crap dude! you had the btm at 3 and your base timing was at 8*. how much boost were you running cause that's not very much timing at all. i run 9 psi. of boost and have my timing at 10* and my btm set at .5-1 with no pinging whatsoever. :shrug:
 
Hmmm. Good to see im not the only one who has blown a head gasket lately.
After my heads blew i used some morroso copper head gaskets. Well I couldn't get them to seal right. I still have them if you want to give them a try.. They are extra thick to lower the compression a little.

Then I had my heads o-ringed and used the fel-pro lock wire type... I haven't had a problem sence. Trick flow recommended this to me and said that i wouldn't have any more problems.

Some say that the headgaskets should be somewhat weak to save the engine... I say if its tuned right it shouldn't matter...
 
Been there and done that. Change them both if coolant is lost. I'm out of the power adder club because of stuff like this. I also had my timing like yours and BTM at the max. Oh, and what do you mean by spark plug crushing? Pics?
 
Really seems odd that you would blow a HG with the BTM set so conservatively. What is it, 8 base + 16 from the EEC - (3 * psi)? That would give you pretty low total timing, is it possible to pull *too much* timing?

As for the crushed electrode, I've heard that detonation can cause that. What kind of plugs were you running... possible that they are too hot a plug? That brings to mind preignition... and now *that* would suck in a big bad way...

Dave
 
Thanks for all the rplies guys!

Well i spent a few hours on it tonite, ripped the engine down to the shortblock. And BAM three firerings on the pass side were completely warped... And on the other side it looks OK. Didnt wanna risk leaving it..

I have it all ready for assembly, block and heads are scraped down, just gotta pick up the gaskets tomorrow and hopefully it will be running by night.

All the plugs are ghost white, which suprises me with the 42lb'ers and the pumps. Hopefully when i get it on the dyno, we can figure out how to keep it a lil rich to be safe.

Funny thing is my boost gauge hasnt been working so i dunno what it was at. It was so friggen fast though. I learned my lesson on that. It will make it to this fridays dyno tune!

Ill post a pic of the HG's and spark plug tomorrow..
 
Good to hear Jesse, and I'm very glad you are not O ringing the heads. Like Moneypit said, if you have the tune on, you don't need them. I hear nothing but GREAT things about the ROL gaskets, Ed can get them for you.
 
Well, got a good 9 hours into it thus far, here she is :D

enginebay89.jpg


enginebay90.jpg


Now i just needa hook up the other 4 plug wires, and stab the dizzy, and fill it up with oil/antifreeze. Shoould be running again tomorrow!

Heres what the HG looked like... The other one looked pretty much fine. I left the crunched plug at my friends house, ill get a pic up of that tomorrow.

headgasket1.jpg


headgasket.jpg
 
Ok listen real close now,

Buy Cometic Head gaskets ONLY!!!! I have seen 19 psi of boost with no problems. Then run better gas than what you are now, 6 bucks a gallon is cheaper than a blown bottom end. Plus you only fill up with C16 when you are gonna romp on it.